LAS VEGAS BETS BIG ON NHL FRANCHISE
Ownership group says season-ticket drive proves fan base is viable and eager
It could be a game changer for the famed Las Vegas Strip.
Dovetailing with plans to bring a National Hockey League team to Sin City, construction is now about 80 per cent complete on a state-ofthe-art arena. It is a privately funded, US$375-million, 20,000-seat facility being built on approximately 16 acres of prime land perched between the Strip’s New York-New York Hotel and Casino, and the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino.
The arena’s grand opening is April 6, 2016 with performances planned by Las Vegas hometown performers The Killers, Wayne Newton and Shamir. Country music star George Strait is scheduled for shows on April 22-23. And Garth Brooks is booked in for a series of shows in June and July.
But it’s not the entertainment aspect that has locals abuzz about their new arena. Talk in Vegas centres on the possibility of landing the city’s first top-tier professional sports team, specifically an NHL hockey franchise.
From taxi drivers to those who live near or work on the Strip, many are enthusiastic about a hockey team coming to town and they’re not putting their money into casino slot machines but rather into season-ticket deposits. These Americans are, perhaps somewhat surprisingly to outsiders, as interested in hockey as Edmontonians are head over heels over Connor McDavid. They want to see NHL games and they want to see them live in Las Vegas.
“We had set out to secure at least 10,000 paid season-ticket deposits,” said Todd Pollock, director of ticketing and suites for Black Knight Sports and Entertainment, the prospective Las Vegas NHL ownership group. “Within eight weeks we were at 10,000 paid deposits and we’re now over 13,500. Probably the most surprising part was when we announced we reached our 10,000 goal, and then we sold an additional 3,500 tickets — people continue to want to be a part of it.”
With a greater metropolitan region of more than two million people in Clark County to draw from, Pollock points out that at least 90 per cent of the seasonticket deposits have been sold to locals. The plan is to cap season ticket deposits at between 14,500 and 15,000 seats or just over 80 per cent of the 17,500 seats available when the arena is outfitted for NHL hockey, leaving some tickets for the 41.1 million visitors Vegas welcomes — a figure that included 1,912,400 Canadians in 2014.
“While Vegas is very much a tourist-dominated market, the fact that there is no professional sports team here gave us the idea that people would want it,” adds Pollock. “When you go to work on Monday, it’s a melting pot. There’s no common bond for people here. So people, from that perspective, have shown a desire to get a sports team. There’s also quite a few transplants from other markets that like and follow hockey. I’ve talked to people that drive to Anaheim (from Vegas), that drive to Glendale, that drive to the Staples Center to see NHL hockey. I’ve talked to a guy a couple of weeks ago who flew to San Jose in the morning ( just to see the Sharks) and came back the next day, so there is certainly a hockey fan base here.”
2 Number of acres in outdoor plaza for pre-event functions and special events
50
Number of luxury suites
24-plus
Number of private loge boxes
100-150
Number of events the arena will host annually
375
— Cost, in millions of dollars, of the arena
17,500
Seats for NHL hockey
75,000
Square footage of the arena’s loading dock, staging, storage, and other facilities to accommodate major events, including six truck docks
1
Canada is the No. 1 country when it comes to international visitors heading to Las Vegas
18
The number of weekly flights from Edmonton, as well as Montreal, to Las Vegas
26
The number of weekly flights from Vancouver to Las Vegas
28
The number of weekly flights from Calgary to Las Vegas
35
The number of weekly flights from Toronto to Las Vegas
12,000-20,000 Seating for concerts, depending on the configuration
650,000
The square footage of the arena